This game of back-and-forth could go on forever but it shouldn't.

"Are you New?"

Why is it always the winter spirits who just don't seem to get it? Why does she think taking that tone with him is going to get her anywhere but in his worse graces? He's not asking why this exchange is getting his heart rate up higher than it should, but that's about the only question he's not asking.

"In case nobody explained it to you, I usher winter out." She's posturing, so he does the same, sauntering a few feet closer, but still not close enough for him to feel so much as a chill. "When it's time for the season to turn favorable again, I make that happen. There's a time for everything, and I wait for mine, but I've yet to meet a winter spirit that didn't have a problem letting go."

He can only remember one. He can only remember one spirit, but that fact feels so intensely true, so easy and powerful to say, that it must be. Feeling what he doesn't remember doesn't seem off to him, not about this.

"Now, are you gonna be the exception, or are we gonna have a problem?"